Detroit Douglass junior Darrell Davis finished with a game-high 16 points, scoring 9 points in the fourth, to lead his team to a 51-46 win over Warren De La Salle. (Jared Purcell | japurcell@mlive.com)

After Douglass (6-4) went on a 9-3 run to open the final quarter and cut De La Salle's lead to 39-37, Davis steeped up and hit a three-point shot to give the Hurricanes a lead it would not relinquish with 5:16 to play.

"It was a game changer," Davis sad. "I had to knock it down."

However, the Pilots (8-2) were not going to go away that easily and Douglass had to come up with another crucial play down the stretch. Once again, Davis stepped up for Douglass.

After Douglass junior Andre Frederick missed the second of two free throws with 2:39 to play, Davis grabbed the rebound and then added a layup soon after to increase Douglass lead to a more manageable score of 45-39.

"It was really big," Davis said. "I kept telling my teammates they we needed to get this win. We needed to push through the adversity."

Davis finished with a game-high 16 points while adding a team-high four assists. Frederick finished with 10 points.

Up until the the fourth quarter De La Salle seemed to be controlling the tempo of the game thanks to its zone defense and ability to hit shots from the perimeter and near the basket.

Holding Douglass to just five points in the third quarter, De La Salle seemed like it was ready to put the game away in the fourth. Instead, De La Salle let Davis get around the defense and lost its tempo on offense.

"We just didn't function on offense," De La Salle coach Greg Esler said. "We got away from what we wanted to do. Their big guy was in foul trouble a lot of the time and I thought we were getting the ball inside but we took some freshman shots."

De La Salle went on to get out-scored 23-10 in the fourth quarter.

"It is disappointing because the game was under control," Elser said. "We had the tempo, we had transition. Transition was a big thing - our number one emphasis today. I thought we did a great job at that."

Having a big night for De La Salle was Zach Payne, who registered a double-double with 13 points and a game-high 11 rebounds.

"Quite frankly, (Payne) didn't have too much help in rebounding," Esler said. "They had 14-15 offensive rebounds. Way too many rebounds. Especially when we are packing it inside."

De La Salle junior A.J. Turner finished with 12 points on just 2-of-11 shooting from the field while going 7-for-8 at the line. Senior Tom Novak added 10 points for the pilots.